How to Help a Puppy Who's Teething

Learn how to help a puppy who is teething from dog trainer Robert Haussmann of Dogboy, Inc. in this Howcast video.

Transcript

So it's no mystery that puppies teethe and when they do teethe they do a lot of naughty things. They chew on things they're not supposed to chew on, they nip a little harder than they should nip. Puppies naturally explore their environment with their mouths and when they get to teething it feels really good for them to bite down on things, just like it does for a baby.

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So in dogs that are teething you want to make sure that you have a lot of things that are appropriate for chewing that you can replace so that if they're chewing on your pant leg or they're chewing on your shoe, that they have something that's fresh and exciting to chew on.

If there's just a pile of toys laying around all day, those are going to become kind of boring and old to the dog and then your loose pajama pants will become much more exciting and they'll come for those instead.

So you want to make sure you have kind of a rotating selection of high value chew toys for a teething puppy. Also, make sure that you have a place where the dog can be away to chew so the dog is not dropping the toy and going after your foot or chewing on your pillows or your shoes. They're in a place where you can monitor them like the exercise pen here.

There's a bunch of things on the market that are great for teething puppies but again, make sure that they're not just all laid out all day long where the dog is going to become bored with them and move onto something that's inappropriate.

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Stuffed toys, hard plastic toys, hard rubber toys and pieces of bone that you can actually stuff with food, you can actually utilize those all day long when the dog is really super focused on and knows that what he's supposed to chew on instead of anything else.

So it's a matter of conditioning the dog to chew things that are appropriate versus things that are inappropriate. But monitor, manage it and also keep your expectations realistic. They're going to chew, they're going to nip as part of being a puppy but you can teach them that there are things that you chew and there are things that you don't chew but you have to make sure that your in charge of all that.